


Maybe Time Will Tell

by bittersweet_skylines



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 1960s AU, Historical Inaccuracies, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Death, OOC characters, POV Change, References to songs, Song fic, Unreliable Narrator, mentions of cheating, sad ending with little angst, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29351592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittersweet_skylines/pseuds/bittersweet_skylines
Summary: Grantaire knew something didn’t feel right as he prepared to marry his childhood best friend, but he realized why it was too late. It was the sixties though, and he was already married, so it was a secret he kept all his life.Until a young couple stops at his roadside peach stand, and gives him a chance to share his story for the first time.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Grantaire/Éponine Thénardier
Kudos: 12





	Maybe Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Title and general inspiration of the story comes from the song Bill and Annie by Chuck Brodsky. 
> 
> Any inconsistencies within Grantaire’s story (all the places told from the first POV) is intentional. Also, everyone’s a little OOC here. I’m just in a writing slump and I used this to try and help me get out of it.

“I can’t believe you’re making us stop for peaches,” Combeferre said as he pulled over to the small, worn-out driveway of a county house. The stand was right at the start of the driveway, just far back enough to leave them room to park. It was empty- not a person in sight, but all the fresh produce was laid out neatly. 

“Farm fresh peaches,” Courfeyrac responded as he unbuckled. 

“There’s not even a person waiting here!” Combeferre said. Courfeyrac shrugged and got out anyways, his wallet in hand. 

As he approached the stand, an old man began walking down the length of the driveway. He held a warm smile, giving the two a nod. Combeferre visibly took a sidestep away from Courfeyrac, but he tried not to notice. Small town, older people… It was expected, he supposed. 

“Sorry ’bout the wait,” the man said as he moved behind the stand. He seemed to be about seventy, but his hands were well worn, dirt under the nails as if he had been tending to his garden just now. “Hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“We’d just pulled up, actually,” Courfeyrac said with a small smile. “I saw the sign and couldn’t resist. The market wasn’t open and-“

“You don’t have to bore him, Courf,” Combeferre said. 

The man, though, just smiled. 

“It’s fine. We don’t get many strangers stopping by. Mostly just locals. Fresh faces are always nice,” he said, adjusting himself to sit on a stool behind the stand. “I’ve been here fifty years. The local population don’t change much.” 

“What brings you two here?” He asked. It was a genuinely curious question. The two men looked at each other, both trying to decide what the best explanation would be. 

“Summer road trip, we were just passing through,” Combeferre decided. The man glanced between them. His gaze landed on Coufeyrac’s hand, where he wore a thin engagement ring. Combeferre had stuffed his hands in his pocket when he saw the man approach, and that was where they still stayed. 

“Engagement celebration?” He asked. They glanced at each other again, both tensing just a bit. “I don’t mean to assume,” he continued. “It’s good. I’m glad that’s possible nowadays.” 

Courfeyrac smiled and nodded. 

“We’re excited,” he said simply. Combeferre gave a small smile. 

“Oh, I bet,” the man replied. He paused a moment. “I can’t imagine what I would’ve done when I was your age- young and in love.” Another pause before he stuck out his hand. “I’m Grantaire, by the way.” 

“Courfeyrac,” he replied, shaking his hand. “And this is Combeferre, my fiancé, though you’ve put that all together.” They both gave a small laugh. 

“It’s nice to meet someone so supportive and…” Combeferre started, trailing off. 

“Go on, you can say it. Old,” Grantaire said. “And it would be wrong not to support people getting what I wished I had. If I couldn’t, I’m happy you are… Now, what can I get for ya?” He asked. 

“Oh just-“

“Sorry, what do you mean what you wished you had?” Courfeyrac said, cutting off Combeferre, who gave him a quick look. Grantaire sighed, taking off his hat to run a hand through his thin but curly white hair. 

“I’m afraid that’s got the potential to be a very long story,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to hold you two up, but simply put, I’m a gay man who realized it too late.”

“We have time,” Courfeyrac said. Combeferre shot him a look. 

“Sir, you don’t need to,” Comebeferre interjected. “I understand how weird it is to tell such personal stories to strangers.”

“I’ve never told anyone,” he remarked. “Might be nice to tell someone before I’m past my time… Keep my tale alive. If you’d like, I could try.”  
The two looked between each other again. Courfeyrac gave a slight nod, and with one look, the other gave in and nodded. 

“Please,” Courfeyrac said. Grantaire gestured to two stools to the side of the stand, both with small containers of fruit on top. Wordlessly, they moved the fruit on the stand and brought the chairs in front to sit on. 

—-

_I guess the first thing I should mention… is that I did live a happy life. I like to think I lived a happy life, I suppose. My wife was wonderful, my childhood best friend, but she never knew. I never knew until my wedding night. Suspicions, yes. I never looked at women the way I looked at men. I couldn’t deny how my eyes might have lingered in the locker room at school. I couldn’t deny that there had been men who made my heart skip a beat whenever they walked in the room, but it never happened the same with women. I didn’t think a lot of it. I knew what was right. Sorry, what was considered right a long time ago._

_We met at my wedding. The spring of sixty four. Unfortunate timing. I noticed him the second he walked into the church- his blond hair a glow. It was by chance, but he had been standing directly under a window with the warmest looking sunbeam I had ever seen. He was talking to my wife- Eponine’s brother. He had been the ring bearer but was chatting with guests as they’d been seated. We locked eyes. I thought it had been a mistake when he smiled at me, a complete stranger but… I learned later it wasn’t._

_Throughout the whole ceremony, I refused to look in his direction. I can remember my hands shaking as I said my vows, smiling at Eponine, who looked as lovely as she ever had before. I remember wiping a tear of happiness from the corner of her eye as she said hers. The whole world seemed to stop when we kissed, and while I was happy… I wasn’t as happy as I thought I had been._

_So at the banquet and party that evening, I avoided the stranger. I kept by my wife’s side. She wasn’t much for parties… I had been, but I respected that, and we kept it small—fifty people in the hall where our school dances had been._

_At some point, though, she had started a conversation with my mother, and I snuck off to smoke. I needed air, anyways._   
_I guess he had been watching me because as soon as I lit my cigarette at the edge of the property, propped up against an oak tree, he was by my side._

_“Congratulations,” he said. He had said it before he even introduced himself. I smiled and thanked him before offering him a smoke. We stood in silence, both savouring our cigarettes. There was no tension between us. I remember that clear as day. We kept our gaze on each other, but there was never anything awkward about it._

_“Enjolras,” he finally said as he stamped his cigarette out. He held out his hand, and I shook it, giving a smile. ‘_

_“Grantaire,” I replied. He had laughed the most beautiful, effortless laugh I had ever heard._

_“I know,” he replied. “I did just spend my whole day watching your most important day of your life.”_

_“I suppose you did,” I replied, giving a small nod. “Doesn’t feel real.”_

_“Long time waiting?” He asked. I looked at him, considering the best answer as I stamped out my own cigarette, slowly exhaling the last of the smoke._

_“We’ve been best friends all our lives practically,” I explained. “Got engaged last spring… bout a month after we’d started seriously seeing each other. So, it depends how you look at it.”_

_I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me until then that we had never met before. I mean, I had noticed him earlier that day as a stranger, but I never thought to ask him about how he knew Eponine or her family, how his name was one I didn’t recognize on the list of guests._   
_I learned later in that conversation that he and Eponine had met in high school. He hadn’t gone to school with us- I would’ve noticed if he had. There were only twelve of us in my grade. But they had met when she spent half her junior year in the city and had stayed in touch. How I never knew about him, I don’t know. They’d been penpals all this time, and I never knew._

_We’d decided to head back in after nearly half an hour of just talking. I didn’t want to-; I wanted to stay outside in the warm, spring night with him as long as possible. His smile warmed me in a way I never imagined. As I began to walk, I remember feeling my wedding band tight around my finger… aware of every piece of it touching my skin, almost like it suddenly dropped two sizes. I twisted and adjusted it- just to make sure it was in my head._   
_When I returned, Eponine had come back and kissed me on the cheek and dragged me to the dance floor just as the band began a cover of The Tennessee Walt._

_“It’s quite a sad song to be dancing to as newlyweds, ain’t it?” I asked. She just smiled and shrugged._

_“We danced to this at Prom, after-“Gosh. I don’t even remember his name now… We’d always called him Monty- that hadn’t been his name, though._

_Anyways, she reminded me that we had danced to that song at our senior school dance after her date was caught getting busy in the cupboard with someone’s cousin who’d come in just for the dance. I smiled at the thought, as weird as it felt. I remember locking eyes with Enjolras again as we danced. Eponine never noticed- if she had, she never said anything._

_I feel like she didn’t notice, though, because not long after, she was dragging me across the room to introduce me to Enjolras, who was sitting at one of the tables with a glass of wine. She introduced us as if we were strangers. Enjolras looked like he was about to go along with it._

_“We met outside, actually,” I said. I can’t remember much of that conversation now… I can remember the first one Enjolras and I had as clear as day. Down to his facial expressions… but me and Eponine had sat and spoken with him for… almost the same amount of time, and I can say, without a doubt, I remember nothing._

_I just know that at some point, Eponine invited him over to our new home- that home right up the driveway, the next Saturday. She hadn’t even seen the place yet, but she wanted to show it off… claiming how she was sure I’d done an absolutely stunning job on the home. He agreed. I learned later that he was actually supposed to go back to the city the next morning, but he paid to stay there at the town’s inn for another week._  
  
——

“I’ll save ya the trouble and skip over the rest of our wedding,” Grantaire said with a small laugh. “Took her home, did the whole cross the bride over the front door thing. You can put two and two together- you both look pretty smart.” 

Both of them gave a sort of hollow laugh, unsure of whether it had been a joke or not. 

“So that was it then?” Combeferre asked. Courfeyrac subtly nudged him. He was interested in the man’s story. He wanted to hear more. He didn’t want to lose this chance because his fiancée was bored. 

“Tell me, how did you two meet?” Grantaire asked. 

“We were in the same English class our first University term,” Courfeyrac said. 

“Well, officially, we met in a study group… But the group was for that specific class,” Combeferre corrected. 

“And when did you two really click?” Grantaire asked. 

“That first day.”

“So you kept pursuing each other, I’d imagine.” They both gave a small nod. “Well I ain’t proud of it, but I didn’t stop either. Just when life feels like it’s falling into place… they throw a curveball at you… And I am a man who used to give in to temptation easily.”

——

_The next Saturday, we hosted a small dinner party. We’d reserved this one for friends… Eponine’s family would come the next day, but she wanted to keep a close eye on them. Course, that’s another story._

_I can remember all of us sitting in the living room. It still smelt like the fresh stain I had put on the wall’s panels, and the furniture hadn’t been broken in yet. We were all drinking after dinner while my wife and the wife of another friend cleaned up. They were laughing in the kitchen and us in the living room. I kept catching glances from Enjolras, who was sitting across the room._

_We got along. There was always this bickering… back and forth about the stupidest ideas, but we got along. He didn’t drink often, but tonight he was._   
_People trickled out slowly over time to go home. Most of them lived in or around town, but no one really wanted to stay out late with church in the morning. Enjolras stayed, though. We played chess while Eponine sat beside me, arm around my waist… happily talking with Enjolras about memories the two had with each other. All friendly- of course. She never had an interest in him… Ep was easy to read like that._

_At some point, though, she dismissed herself. He had checked out of the inn that morning, hoping to leave late that night, but Eponine insisted he just stay with them. So while she was getting ready for bed upstairs, I showed Enjolras the spare bedroom._

_“Lovely place,” he said. The whole house was pretty bare… I had only furnished it with enough to give us a good life. The clutter and memories would come later. The spare room was designed to easily become a nursery at some point._

_“Shoulda seen it when I bought it. Disaster from the 20s.”_

_“It’s nice.”_

_We’d fallen into silence. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and without thinking, I moved to sit next to him. We sat in silence for a long time- looking back, it was probably less than a minute, but every second felt like an eternity._

_Maybe it was the alcohol or the fact that just the table side lamp was on, but I moved closer. He was leaving in the morning… He lived in the city, so I knew I wouldn’t see him again… If so, it wouldn’t be for a long time. I wanted to say something- but we had just met. We just met, and the two of them had been friends._

_“What’s your home like?” I asked, staring ahead at the soft yellow wallpaper._

_“An apartment,” Enjolras replied. “A nice little one bedroom place… I don’t need much more than that.”_

_“Just you? No one in your life?” I asked. I knew what I wanted to ask by then, and my heart raced at just the thought of it. My hands stayed in my lap, his in his own. We had both been so stiff… I’m surprised that I didn’t notice the kind of tension we had between each other._

_“Just me,” he said. “I like to work… There’s only been a few times where I’ve felt attraction to someone.”_

_“I didn’t steal her, did I?” I joked. I finally looked over to him, and we locked eyes. His gaze stayed on mine as he slowly shook his head._   
_Again. We were just staring in silence… his lips were parted slightly. They looked so soft. My eyebrows furrowed, and finally, I dropped my gaze, looking ahead again._

_“Do you feel what I feel?” Enjolras asked. I swallowed. I didn’t have to ask what he was talking to because I just knew._

_“I do,” I replied quietly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod._

_“Do you love her?” He asked. It was a loaded question- we both knew it was, but I didn’t have to think twice about my answer._

_“I do,” I replied. “I never… we grew up together. My parents aren’t around now, but it only made sense for us to end up together. Everyone in high school thought we were… all ten of them-“I laughed “-thought the two of us were set to marry as soon as we turned eighteen… I never felt romantic feelings for women… but I think I could with her.”_

_I believed it. I did love Eponine, truly I did. I still do. She was my best friend, my wife… the mother of my two beautiful children, and for a time, I thought she was my soulmate. Not because I wanted her to…, but I needed her to._

_All the while, I looked at Enjolras, and my heart skipped a beat. I watched him smile, and my heart soared… but I barely knew him at the end of the day. We had just met, and I had just taken a wife. I said my vows as he watched in the pews. It would be wrong to act on these sudden feelings, so I didn’t._

_I didn’t even hold his hand that night. I wanted to… I wanted to do more than that, but I didn’t. So I said goodnight, reminded him where the glasses were in case he needed water during the night, and I went upstairs._

_Eponine was already in bed, hair set for the night and in her nightgown. When I got in that bed, the first thing I did was move in close to her, hugging her close to my chest despite her protest. I kissed her, and I guess she knew something was wrong because the first thing she said was, “Is everything okay.”_

_Was it? Looking back, I can say it wasn’t. It wasn’t, and it wouldn’t be for a long time. But at the time, I thought it was. I thought I knew what was best for myself and for the people I cared about. So I nodded, and I settled in bed beside her._

——

“He was gone before either of us had woken up,” Grantaire said. “Left a note thanking us and an address and number we could reach him at.” 

“So… that was it then?” Combeferre asked again. He just smiled. 

“No, far from it. However, I hate to keep you two much longer. It’s the most… important part, I suppose. Those first two meetings,” Grantaire said.

“What can I get for you?” He asked, gesturing to the fruits and vegetables on his table. 

“There’s got to be more to your life than that,” Courfeyrac said. He was getting tired of insisting that Grantaire continue talking to them. “You said it yourself, you’ve never told anyone… so tell us. Please.” 

——

_Well… The next month went without a word from Enjolras. Not a call or a letter. I figured it was for the best. After that first confusing week, once Eponine and I moved into the steady rhythm of our domestic life settled, and it felt so easy. So natural._

_Then a letter came. It was addressed to me from Enjolras. I got the mail that day, so I stuffed that letter in the pocket of my pants and brought the rest up to the house. Eponine had been working in the garden, so I sat down in my office- well, a room with a desk and a series of bookshelves, and read it._

_I wish I could tell the two of you exactly what the letter said… I don’t have it anymore. We exchanged letters for years, and I don’t have a single one… but it wasn’t a romantic admittance of his love for me. He didn’t try to convince me to leave my wife for him and move to the city. No. He just wanted to say hello, ask how everything was. So I responded… and we became pen pals of some sort. Our letters took about a week to get to and from each other, so twice a month, I would get a letter and twice a month, I would send one._

_Then in September, Eponine’s family, her parents and her two younger siblings were going to visit Eponine’s aunt a state over. They wanted Eponine to come with them, but not me. I still don’t know why this was- part of me thinks it was Eponine who didn’t want me to come, but I can’t see why._

_She wasn’t ashamed of me, at least I hoped._

_She’d be gone three weeks. It only took me a day to drive to the city._

_So I wrote to Enjolras, they left on a Monday, and I left on the following Wednesday. At this point, my feelings for him had grown undeniably. I always reminded myself of Eponine, though. I wasn’t visiting a lover. I was visiting a friend—a friend who I met at my own wedding._

_Still, the way his arms wrapped around me when he opened the door of his apartment was… undeniably not what a friend would do._   
_I only stayed a week, should Eponine come home early I didn’t want her to come home to an empty house, with the car missing and no note. I’d been to the city a few times before, so we didn’t do any sightseeing. We mostly stayed in._

_On the Friday night, he popped a bottle of expensive wine, and we had an elaborate meal. Well, neither of us was much of a chef, but what we managed to cook tasted already after the first glass. We drank the bottle; then we drank another cheaper one._

_Then my judgement and memory started to blur, and then suddenly, I woke up naked, in the morning, in his bed._

——

Grantaire stayed quiet for a moment, reflecting on what he just said. They could tell this was the first time he admitted this out loud. Much like the rest of this story, none of it had been put into the air before. Courfeyrac wondered if he had ever written it down. Everything seemed so fresh in his mind still, but he was curious. He wanted to know more. 

He sighed before he cleared his throat and continued. 

——

_I’m not proud of what I did. To this day, I’m not proud of it. I ain’t proud of the first time I did it- and yes, I said first because this happened twice more in my life. Spread out and as rare as they were._

_I got home, and Eponine found out she was pregnant. She shared the news with her friend before I got the chance to. Enjolras congratulated me in a letter and then asked me not to write back. Not for a while, at least._

_I did what he asked. I wanted to respect him… and while I never told Eponine what I had done, I wanted to respect her too. So I put distance between us and focused my attention on the friends we had in our community._

_We had a boy, named him Louis. There was no special meaning to it- it was just the name we liked. He’s a doctor now, with his own family. Both my kids have moved off to the city. I was there for a while too, but I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself._

_After Louis was born, our letters began to be exchanged slowly again. I’d get it and take my time to reply, sometimes putting it off for almost three weeks. His letters still made me smile… but my kid did too. My own fantasies and indulgences were put again… not that anything intimate had been exchanged within the letters._

_Well-_

_No. It was a brief, low time in my life._

_Enjolras visited when Eponine got pregnant with our second child- Rose, a girl. She surprised us both that evening over while we were all eating. I had almost choked on my dinner. It was a pleasant surprise, but when Enjolras and I got a chance to speak outside with the excuse of wanting to smoke, it made things a little awkward, I suppose._

_Louis was two at the time. We could hear Eponine putting him to sleep from the bedroom above. The summer heat meant all the windows were open, so we spoke quietly._

_“Two kids,” Enjolras’s commented. “Were you trying for another?”_

_“The plan was to wait until Louis was three to start trying but… whoops.”_

_“Well, I’m glad you two are… pleasuring yourselves then.” It felt like a backhanded comment. He was upset, which I found odd. I mean- I was the same way he was, feeling all these mixed feelings that I couldn’t act upon._

_“You know if I wasn’t married-“I had started in a hushed whisper._

_“But you are.”_

_That was the end of that conversation that night. It hurt to be fighting over something that should have been a happy occasion. I mean, I liked having kids. It was scary, it still is. I always was worried that I would pass my homosexuality onto my kids, plaguing them with the same fate as me. Like I said, I was never unhappy in my marriage. I just wished things had been different._

_The second time I had… given into my own temptations was when Enjolras was staying with us that winter. I wish I could remember why- I suppose it was just for a visit. Eponine had gone out with Louis, and things just kind of happened. We were talking one minute and- for lack of a better word, fucking the next._

_I told him that was the last time we laid there in the guest bedroom. It was about to become my next child’s room, and I didn’t want that room to be tainted more than it had been. So… after that afternoon we were strictly friends. We didn’t speak on our own feelings… though mine stayed, and I’m sure his did too._

_Time went on. My kids grew- lost our third one. Eponine started making jams with the unsold fruits and started selling them. We settled. Settled isn’t the right word- I never settled for Eponine… I loved her, I did. I still do._

_Enjolras and I’s letters naturally began to taper out until they were only being sent when one of us had news to share. Even then, by the eighties, telephones were just easier. So we’d give each other the occasional call._

_I’m sorry, we’re going to get a bit sad now… but uh._

_My wife died suddenly when we were forty five. Our kids were grown and out of the house, but they moved back in with me for a while. It hit me harder than I expected it would. I think it was the suddenness of it all. She wasn’t sick. She was here one day and gone the next._   
_Enjolras came for the funeral. It was the first time I’d seen him in almost two years. He moved farther away at some point, so seeing him was surreal. He tried to keep our exchange brief, but I asked him to stay by my side until she was in the ground. He did… and then he came back to my house for a while afterwards. My kids were there too, but they both gave us space._

_We got talking over a pot of coffee… mostly about Eponine. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who I really felt knew her when I talked about her. I fell asleep in his arms that night… nothing else happened. If my kids noticed it, neither of them ever said anything about it to me._   
_I thought… maybe… about a year later, I was ready to move on. I would never be, really. I still am not. But I just wanted to try. I wanted to let myself feel the feelings that I’d been pushing away all my life._

_We met for coffee again, him visiting my home in the summer for a festival. We sat at my table, and before I could even start talking about my feelings, he told me how he met someone. I didn’t ask for details… I just said I was happy for him. I let him go._

_I let him go, but he never came back._

—- 

“We lost contact after that. Of course, I told him I was happy for him because he found someone. It makes me wonder what happened to him… because the calls stopped so suddenly. I mean- lots of things happened in the eighties. Lots of things I can assume, or rather… I don’t want to assume,” Grantaire said, sighing. 

Neither of them had to ask for clarification to know what he meant. Neither of them knew what to say either. They looked between each other. 

Grantaire cleared his throat. It was clear talking had taken a lot out of the old man. He stood up, straightening his spine. 

“Here. Taste the peaches,” he said, taking one of the peaches from the basket before he sliced it into slices, letting the two take a couple of slices.

Courfeyrac was getting a box regardless, but they were sweet and fresh and danced on his tongue. 

“Just one box for us, please,” Courfeyac said. Grantaire nodded, but without saying anything, he added a jar of strawberry jam as well. 

“For listening to my story,” he said. They smiled and nodded. 

They were gathering their things, putting the stools back and the fruits on top. Grantaire was wiping his hands off on a rag. 

“Do you think I did the right thing?” Grantaire asked. 

“I don’t know, did you?” Combeferre asked. Grantaire just offered a short, small smile. Deep down, he knew the answer. He didn’t make any indication as to what it was, though. 

“It was nice to meet you. Courfeyrac, Combeferre. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your trip together,” Grantaire said. 

They thanked him, sharing one last smile before the two got back into their car. For a long while, they just sat together, hands laced together. They listened to the radio, fuzzy out in the middle of nowhere. 

“I love you,” Courfeyrac finally said, looking over at the other. 

“I love you too


End file.
